Spain has its first Smokers’ martyr. It’s a 34 year old male [of course] who sat next to the No Smoking sign in the cafeteria of a motorway services in Navarra, lit up and then adamantly refused to either stop or move to the Smoking area just a couple of metres away. When he refused to give his identity, he was arrested, taken down to the nick and fined 240 euros in a summary judgement. I suspect, though, most of this was for the more heinous offence in Spain of not producing an identity card.

And a friend has told me of an old chap who lit up in the only No Smoking bar of her village and, when told to desist, said he missed Franco as life was freer under him because you could smoke where you liked. Most of us find our broad mind and narrow waist eventually change places but I hope it’s at least another 30 years before I start equating freedom to think and say what I like with the freedom to slowly kill myself and irritate a lot of people along the way.

The Catalunian government is reported to have examined patient records to check on whether doctors are complying with an obligation to favour Catalan over Spanish. There is a line somewhere between the legitimate promotion of a regional/national language in a ‘plurinational’ state and what amounts to abuse. The UK, for example, has faced this issue with Welsh and English in Wales. But in this instance, the line appears to have been well and truly crossed, especially as patient permission was not sought. This is a potentially criminal offence but it also raises the question of just how far the Catalan nationalists are prepared to go in pursuit of their goals. As it happens, I read this view today in a book about ‘reality and delusion in the course of history’. Most people will have come across – and many novelists have written about – the types who seek power in a village, or a college or a business, often with a high level of self-justification. In a state-wide – or continent-wide – bureaucracy, there is a great deal of room for this unfortunate temperament.

My nice-but-noisy neighbour, Tony, has gone back to his petrol tanker and so things are quieter again next door. Or, rather, they would be if someone who’s been doing this on and off for 2 years wasn’t hammering on and drilling holes in our shared wall. I guess this was left until now because it would have disturbed Tony during his R&R. Nice to know someone benefited from some consideration.